The Music and Dance of Melanesia

The Music and Dance of Melanesia Adrienne L. Kaeppler Melanesia (from Greek, meaning ‘black islands’) encompasses an area of the Pacific Ocean roughly west of the International Dateline, south of the equator, and east of New Guinea. The French explorer Dumont d’Urville used the term to describe the skin of the people he encountered. Their physical traits, however, are as varied as their cultural traits, which include classic “Melanesian” societies, Polynesian outliers , and Micronesian…